


home is just another word for you

by tiffanyachings



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: (/guardian), (ok not quite), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Differences, F/M, Meeting the Parents, Moving In Together, One Shot, Showers, almost shakespearean levels of miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 08:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20328409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiffanyachings/pseuds/tiffanyachings
Summary: They’re not calling it ‘living together’ - she’s never called it that, anyway, and he knows better than to push her about it. Knowing Caroline, she’ll probably push back.Tonight, however, could change everything. Tonight, she’s going to introduce him to Mr Ray Penvenen: uncle, legal guardian and watchful shepherd extraordinaire of Caroline Penvenen.





	home is just another word for you

**Author's Note:**

> this fic kind of developed a life of its own over the past year, but i'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out and really wanted to get it out there before poldark ends and everyone collectively forgets about it. 
> 
> title from billy joel's 'you're my home' bc billy joel just generally writes great songs for carolight (UP-TOWN-GIRL).

Judging by the temperature and humidity of his girlfriend's bathroom, Dwight might as well have opened the door to the Amazonian rainforest.

  
A thick, warm mist greets him, the kind that would warrant turning on the fog lights if he was in a car, and the tangy smell of Caroline's orange shampoo hangs so heavy in the air, it's almost tangible. Sweet but sharp, like herself. If all goes well tonight, he’ll be burying his head in her hair on the backseat of a cab and soak it all in while London’s lights pass by before the end of the night.

  
_If._

  
Dwight grits his teeth and wipes a hand across Caroline’s ridiculously large mirror which only confirms his suspicion that his hair is all over the place from his post-shift nap. It wasn’t even a good nap, and the LED lights on the ceiling sparkle far too brightly for his tired eyes.

  
It's not like her bathroom is outright _fancy_, not exactly. But there is something about its shiny, mould-free, cream-coloured tiles, the clean sink and the pleasant water pressure of its modern and actually functional shower that gives off an unmistakable whiff of money.

  
Or maybe his standards are just desperately low.

  
Not that Dwight minds staying at a place that isn't about to fall apart for once, of course. It's fantastic, really - the hardwood floor, the double-glassed windows, the witty, stunning, mesmerizingly charming main tenant, all of it. Only that there’s just something slightly intimidating about a flat that looks like it's begging to be lived in by a professional events manager in her early forties. _Particularly_ when you haven't even started paying off your student loan.

  
It's Dwight's oddest living arrangement since that ill-fated, disastrous flatshare with Keren Smith and her then-boyfriend Mark in his first year of university, brokered three weeks before the end of his MSF placement in Thailand. Caroline had offered to let him crash at hers - until he found something for himself, he'd always been quick to promise – and hadn’t taken no for an answer.

  
That had been two months ago.

  
Before Caroline started synching their calendars and Dwight's browsing of Zoopla became little more than a half-hearted cover-up routine. Before they pinned a rota for walking Horace to the fridge door. Before Dwight realised he didn't want to wake up next to anyone else ever again.

  
They're not calling it 'living together' - she's never called it that, anyway, and he knows better than to push her about it. Knowing Caroline, she'll probably push back.

  
Tonight, however, could change everything. Tonight, she's going to introduce him to Mr Ray Penvenen: uncle, legal guardian and watchful shepherd extraordinaire of Caroline Penvenen.

  
The news - announced a fortnight ago over pasta puttanesca with a carefully cultivated air of spontaneity and casualness - had come as tea-cup-dropping surprise. But before Dwight had even been able to get a word in edgewise about, y'know, whether maybe that's something they should've talked about together before she dialled her uncle's number, or what had provoked that sudden decision anyway, a table reservation at an upscale restaurant in Covent Garden had been made. And that had settled it.

  
Well, for Caroline, it had.

  
Dwight, on the other hand, had launched himself into an in-depth study of restaurant etiquette with a stomach-churning sense of dread he hadn't felt since his university exams.

  
Not because the Penvenens make him feel all too aware of how worn his one good suit is.  
And certainly not because of the antiquated idea that he needs the old man's blessing to... do anything with his niece at all. After all, Dwight reassures himself, they're living in the 21st century (although he has an inkling that Ray Penvenen may have gotten stuck sometime around 1970).

  
No, the crux of the problem is that, for all her quick-witted jabs and cutting remarks, Caroline loves her uncle.

  
It shines through – even through her mild exasperation when his call disturbs a cosy night of curling up on the couch once again because he can't figure out how to work his own Blu-ray player. "I swear that man was born in the 18th century," she whispers aside to Dwight and rolls her eyes, but there's a certain affection even in this show of annoyance, and she doesn't hang up until Ray Penvenen can finally record the Antiques Roadshow and settle back in what Dwight imagines is a large velvet armchair to carefully enquire after his niece's love life (yes, she's still dating that A&E doctor, no, she doesn't want an invitation to the opening gala of some promising new legal firm).

  
The thought of what will happen to "that A&E doctor" should Uncle Ray take a dislike to his darling niece's choice of a boyfriend and the night end in disaster is something Dwight would rather not dwell on, which naturally means it's the only bloody thing he's been able to think about for days.

  
'If the night ends in disaster,' Dwight thinks, but it occurs to him that they may be hurling towards disaster already. A look on Caroline’s phone (which, miraculously, hasn’t sustained any water damage in this humidity yet) doesn’t ease those worries.

  
Dwight sighs. “Caroline?" he raises his voice above the noise of running water. "It's quarter past."

  
“Your point being?” it tones back from the shower. Behind the milky glass a vaguely Caroline-shaped figure leaves just enough for the imagination.

  
“If I don't get into the shower soon, we're gonna be late."

  
“Fashionably.”

  
_“Rudely.”_ Dwight drums his fingers against the sink, half irritated, half anxious. "It's dinner, not a party, Caroline."

  
There's a squeaky sound as she tries to wipe the foggy glass with her hand, making her minimally clearer. "You could just go like that.”

  
“I most definitely couldn’t.”

  
Leaving the water running, Caroline sticks her head out of the shower. She looks different like this, her face flushed, her blonde hair much darker and clinging to her shoulders, but he’s slowly getting used to it. Dwight thinks he’d like to get fully used to it.

  
“No, I’m serious. There aren't many men who can pull off that bed hair look, but you're really making it work."

  
"Oh, and any other day I would keep it, but it’s not like we’re meeting your uncle at Spoons, are we now?”

  
Caroline’s answer is limited to a contemplative tilt of her head, but even from where is perched on the edge of the sink, Dwight can make out the glint in her eyes. Oh God. This doesn't bode well.

  
"Well," she shrugs, her lips curved into a wicked smile wholly at odds with her innocuous tone, "if you're so keen to shower..."

  
She slowly slides the shower door open with her foot and even after months of getting used to this sight – having some pretty regular hands-on experience with it, actually – Dwight’s mind skips a beat. Now that's a view he'll never tire of seeing.

  
“Come and join me. I could use a hand here; there's this terribly neglected spot on my back I can never reach, y'know.”  
  
"We're not having sex in the shower, Caroline." Dwight's voice is as dry as a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. (Hours and hours of revision have paid off; Dwight knows his wine now. He knows all his different spoons by heart, too.)

  
"I never proposed that, your dirty mind did."

  
Good Lord, she doesn't even _flinch._

  
He holds her unwavering gaze and feels a rush of exhilaration when she lifts her chin in defiance, a lop-sided smirk forming on her lips. It’s a challenge, it’s always a challenge with Caroline, their constant back-and-forth more like a dance than a fight, and it makes him feel so bloody alive.

  
Dwight raises his eyebrows, gives her his best serious look, and feels a ridiculous amount of pride when Caroline eventually rolls her eyes and caves.

  
"Whyever not?" Caroline whines, dropping the innocent pretence altogether.

  
"Because," Dwight says, drawing out the word, "it's a lot less erotic and much more uncomfortable than people think it is. Not to mention the high risk of injuries.” He grimaces. “Slipping and breaking your arm kind of kills the mood."

  
"You're speaking from experience?" The sly smile on Caroline's face grows into an unfairly enticing smirk, and her eyebrows are doing a merry little dance.

  
"Of a kind," Dwight says, and barely manages to suppress a smile as he pushes himself off the sink to saunter over to his very beautiful, very naked, very intrigued-looking girlfriend. It’s a crime, he thinks, teasing her like this, but – well, without wanting to sound too childish – she started it. And it’s so exhilarating. "Last January I had a man come into A&E – "

  
Predictably and yet utterly pricelessly, Caroline's face falls in disappointment.

  
“Hey,” Dwight laughs as she boxes his arm in an act of half-hearted revenge, "I'd just rather not end up there on my night off. Besides, your uncle would have me arrested on the spot if we showed up to dinner with you looking all bruised."

  
"He literally can't do that."

  
"Ehh, I'm sure he's got some contacts at the MET."

  
"Alright, alright," Caroline exclaims, raising her hand in defeat and waving it at him like an imaginary white flag. "For the sake of your unblemished criminal record, no sex in the shower."

  
But she can't leave it at that, of course she can't, she always gets what she wants, that's the power of being Caroline Penvenen. One single glance at her face looking more put out than Horace after his mistress leaves for work and Dwight can virtually hear his defences crumbling, and now she’s scrunching up her nose and – "It is true, though, you know," she says and tilts her head at him rather prettily. "What I said about that neglected spot on my back."

  
He knows he’s lost.

  
“You're impossible," Dwight laughs, shirt already halfway pulled over his head.

  
"To argue with? Yes."

  
He wants to reply, fire back something, not let her have the last word, but then she leans in to meet his lips and pulls him into the shower, soft hands cupping his face, and for a good second or two Dwight almost forgets about all the good, sensible reasons he shouldn't back her against the slippery tiles and – 

_"Fuck!"_

  
A gush of hot water hits him, scalding hot water, the kind that feels like it’s about ten seconds in the kettle away from boiling when it touches your skin, and Dwight frantically scrambles for the temperature control to turn it _down_, just make it _stop_, which is immediately followed by a piercing scream from Caroline as the water temperature suddenly drops to freezing.

  
"So risking a few bruises goes too far, but death by fucking hypothermia is alright, yeah?" Caroline pants, pressing herself into the corner of the shower.

  
"It's good for your immune system," Dwight answers distractedly, still recovering from the shock. Well, that just effectively killed any passion. Probably for the better, admittedly. "Do you always shower like this?"

  
"Is there a problem with it?" That's Caroline for you, the bestdefense is a good offense.

  
"No, I'm just - Jesus, Caroline, the temperature control is there for a reason!"

  
"I like to look at it as an overly cautious suggestion," she says and folds her arms over her chest. “Safety gone mad, really.” 

Dwight sighs.

  
They are very different - he's been told so countless times, and it's true, there's no denying that. And while opposites may attract (strongly, passionately - that much he's got empirical proof of), Dwight has to admit that he's not quite immune to his friends’ delicately worded questions about whether opposites can live together in a stable long-term relationship. Ross had given them no more than a year, less even after Dwight accepted another MSF mission, and he can’t hardly blame him: he’d been almost surprised himself that Caroline had stuck with him through six months of long-distance phone calls and postcards.

  
The thing about Caroline is –

  
The thing is, she's _a lot_ \- funny, clever, beautiful; the whole damn deal with extra sprinkles on top.

  
In fact, sometimes it feels like she's too much for anyone to keep.

  
Sometimes, when he finds himself lying awake at night, Dwight wonders whether inviting him to stay at her flat was just one of those crazy, sleep-deprivation-fuelled idea Caroline comes up with at six in the morning before she’s had her coffee and fully come to her senses. Whether he's overstaying his visit. Whether she really wants him to move in with her or if she's secretly wishing he'd pack his bags and leave already.

  
You can’t ask her that, of course, not that directly, you can’t just vaguely gesture at your relationship and go ‘so what is this, actually, and where is it going?’, you just can’t. He’s tried testing the waters by mentioning various MSF projects he’s interested in to check her reaction a couple of times, but her ambivalent responses don’t give much away.

  
She’s always been like this, hiding herself behind milky glass and glittering mist, blurring her thoughts and feelings, but Dwight thought he had become pretty good at looking through her anyway.

  
Recently, she’s been as much of a conundrum as she was when they first met.

  
“Alright, alright, I’ll turn it down a bit, stop looking at me like that.” Caroline’s voice tears him from his thoughts and Dwight realises he’s been blankly staring at her for almost half a minute. “I’ll turn it down, but we’re not having any of your masochistic cold shower nonsense. Compromise?”

  
He smiles. “Compromise.”

  
Caroline presents her back to him with a satisfied grin and turns the shower back on, shooting Dwight a glance over her shoulder to check if he’s alright with the temperature. It’s still hotter than he’s used to, but not unreasonably so, so he nods, grabs her body wash and begins to dedicate himself to diligently washing her back.

  
She hums in contentment and leans back against him.

  
He smiles and plants a kiss on her shoulder.

  
Dwight loves taking care of her, always has, ever since one of their first encounters when she'd been covering the junior doctors' strikes with a throat so badly infected she lost her voice before she could even ask him about his (strong) opinions on Jeremy Hunt, and he'd performed a makeshift operation with the tweezers she had in her handbag on the bloody picket line.

  
It does create a special bond, that sort of experience.

  
He could spend hours drawing lathery circles on her back with his palm, but soon enough, Caroline straightens up again and smooths back her wet hair.

  
"Your turn," she says.

  
"My –? I'm perfectly capable of washing myself."

  
"Yeah,” she says and squishes some shampoo into her hands, “but you're just about as tense as a Bake-Off finalist who's about to present his collapsed cake sculpture to Paul Hollywood."

  
"Oh, I wonder why," Dwight mutters. He's going for sarcasm, but the soothing feeling of her hands working through his hair makes it come out more mellow than intended. "I feel like I'm going to a job interview."

  
Behind him, Caroline laughs. "Because handling me is such a challenge Uncle Ray feels like he's got to make sure you're up to the task?"

  
Dwight spins around to face her, anxiety and frustration getting the better of him. "Because he loves you and wants the best for you and he knows - we _all_ know you could have your choice of men."

  
"Or women."

  
"Or women."

  
They stare at each other for a few terribly awkward seconds before Caroline realizes her response was possibly not the most apt one, and Dwight can feel something shift in the atmosphere as she seems to understand this conversation is happening on a whole different level of seriousness. It's grown chilly, and he can’t blame it on the water temperature.

  
For a moment, a shadow of apprehension clouds her face, then she shrugs and reaches for the soap.

  
"Well, but I've chosen you, haven't I?" An endearingly honest innocence swings in her voice and in spite of himself, Dwight feels the corners of his lips twist up ever so slightly.

  
The smile Caroline offers in return is so warm and encouraging, he almost feels bad for bringing up such a touchy subject at all. She tilts her head expectantly, waiting for him to speak, but before he can form a delicately worded reply, she’s already reaching up to affectionally dip some foam on his nose with a light-heartedness that doesn't quite ring true. "From the great pool of applicants, you are the best candidate. Dear Dr Enys, on behalf of the Penvenen family, I am pleased to offer you a position as -"

  
_"Caroline."_

  
She halts in her motion, and Dwight wants to kick himself as he watches her cheerful expression give way to a blank stare and then sour faster than milk left outside on a mid-summer’s day. She’s sucking her cheek now as well, which is even worse and frankly a little terrifying.

  
"I'm old enough to know what's or who's best for me, don't you think, Dwight?" Caroline’s voice is sharp and quiet, and he curses himself for pissing her off this royally and avoids her razor-sharp gaze.

  
Shit, shit, shit, bad move, Enys, very bad move.

  
"Look at me. Do I look like a woman who's going to twiddle her thumbs and wait for her uncle's seal of approval?"

  
"_No -_," not all, thinks Dwight, but you don't want to antagonise him either.

  
"What do you think is gonna happen if you two don't get on?" He bites his lip but doesn't answer. "You think I'm just gonna dump you?”

  
No, Dwight thinks, not quite that, not directly, but he knows her uncle, he knows how classist and old-fashioned Ray Penvenen is (the man plays golf in St Andrews, for God’s sake!), he knows how much he treasures his niece, he knows he won’t give that treasure away to just anyone, even when it isn’t even his to give, and Dwight can see it play out, clear as day; the slow but steady erosion of their relationship as Caroline gradually discovers that she she’ll never be able to please both of them, because no matter how many times she tries to deny it, she does care about her uncle’s opinion, she _cares –_

  
"You didn't tell him about us for nearly a year!” Dwight bursts out. “And when you did, you just casually let it drop mid-conversation like you were informing him that you got a new carpet!"

  
"I was trying to minimise the shock!"

  
"So he is shocked? I am a shock? Oh, _good."_

  
"He's seventy-one, Dwight, anything new is a shock to him!"

  
"Yeah, anything, but particularly the idea of you dating a broke doctor who spends his Saturday nights removing glass sharps from drunken men's hands for a living, isn’t it? A senior brain surgeon might still be acceptable, but – "

  
“Stop that.”

  
"I just – “ Dwight stops mid-breath, frantically angling for the right words, but it feels like he’s choking on emotion, and when he finally breathes out, all the build-up frustration seems to leave his body with it. Suddenly he just feels like collapsing into bed. Or Caroline’s arms. “Every time he calls, he tries to dismiss me as just another fleeting romantic liaison you'll soon lose interest in!” he finishes wearily. “After we've been together for more than two years!"

  
"Hey, I know." Caroline touches his arm, her voice much softer now. "He'll come round to you."

  
Dwight grimaces at the floor, singularly unconvinced.

"Eventually,” she adds and squeezes his shoulder before gently reaching for his cheek with the other hand, making him look at her. “You're irresistible. That's what tonight is for, isn't it? Showing him we're serious? And he already knows we're living together -"

  
_"Are we?"_

  
Damnit. He'd meant to casually bring it up while curled up on the sofa together, in a space greater and more comfortable than one-and-a-half slippery square meters. Preferably fully clothed.

  
A beat.

  
"Of course we are," Caroline says eventually, taken aback.

  
Dwight swallows hard. He can feel his heart pounding. One, two, three beats.  
"And, er, is- is that something for two, three months or a year or..."

  
Caroline’s expression turns so guarded, he can virtually watch her pull up the drawbridge. Her eyes dart across his face almost warily, and she swallows before she speaks, carefully but firmly. "It's for however long you want to stay."

  
"Right." Dwight nods. Now that he's got his answer, it suddenly feels oddly unsatisfactory. He searches Caroline’s face for something more, but she quickly looks away, suddenly very busy with putting the bottles on the shower rack the right way up.

  
"Right," he repeats again, if only to fill the silence.

  
Caroline is still avoiding his eyes, crossing her arms and immediately uncrossing them again to fiddle with the water pressure, and it suddenly strikes him that he might not be the only one whose nerves are lying blank.

  
Good Lord. She's so far out of her comfort zone, a map wouldn’t help her find back to it.

  
It’s a strangely comforting thought.

  
A quiet laugh escapes him, a laugh of relief, a laugh about the sheer ridiculousness of the two of them trying to navigate this relationship quagmire in a fucking shower, and it finally makes Caroline look up. She looks…bare, Dwight thinks, and not just because she’s not wearing any clothes. Uncertain, somehow, and honest at the same time. It kindles a spark of hopefulness in him.

  
"I - I don't know how to do this,” she shrugs, her expression somewhere between apologetic and a little pained. “I've never moved in with anyone before. Hell, I've never even introduced anyone to Uncle Ray." She scoffs lightly and her lips twitch. "Uncle Ray has introduced plenty of someones to me. I've never cared for them one bit, but I do care about you. A lot. _You_ make me care about things. Like..." she gestures helplessly, "like teenage binge drinking and – and youth stabbings, and that homeless guy with his dog in front of Waitrose, and all those people who have to choose between food and heating you keep telling me about. And of course I want you to stay, I love… I’d love you to stay, but I also know you've got dreams and ambitions in life that might not be compatible with moving into your girlfriend's overpriced London apartment and treating first-world patients."

  
Caroline lets out a huff of air, almost as if to punctuate her confession, and Dwight knows the ball is in his court now, he needs to say something, now, except that it feels like she just dashed the ball at him with such an unexpected force of emotional honesty it knocked him out entirely. He tries to gather his wits, tries to process what she said about herself, about him, about them…

  
“But if you wanna go,” Caroline is already carrying on quickly with a flippant wave of her hand, “I know a dog who’d jump on the opportunity of filling your space in my bed, literally, y’know, so it’s –“

  
"You're one of them," Dwight says quietly.

  
"First-world patients? That was more than a year - "

  
"Dreams. You're one of my dreams."

  
She gazes at him, eyes wide open like she doesn’t quite comprehend, and Dwight’s heart aches to kiss her as he watches a soft smile, cautious at first, then luminous, spread across her face.

  
“You said you were thinking about Mali," she says, still a little dazed. "And Papua New Guinea. You never fully unpacked your bag.”

  
“I didn’t want you to think that I was making assumptions about us!”

  
“Assump –_ assumptions_, Dwight? You know my calendar better than I do! We share a bed even though you always get up at godforsaken hours and I always try to hog the blankets! I let you walk Horace! On your own! I turned down the shower temperature for you!”

  
“I thought I might be reading into things…”

  
“_I_ thought I was spelling it out as clearly as I could!”

  
“Not in audible words!”

  
"Well…yes,” Caroline concedes, a little stumped. "Yes, I suppose that’s true. In that case” – her gaze meets his and there’s something about the look in her eyes; something steadfast, something determined, something that makes his breath catch in his throat and his heart beat unbearably fast – “since we should probably rectify that as soon as possible” – she takes a deep breath – “would you like to stay? Here? With me?"

  
"Yes." He's grinning like a damn fool. "More than anything."

  
"Good,” Caroline breathes, and her attempt to make it sound casual does little to hide that her laugh is a little shaky with relief. “I was hoping you'd say that."

  
She barely finishes her sentence before he closes the distance between them and meets her lips.

  
This is why everyone dreams about kissing in the rain, Dwight thinks and brings up his hands to cup her face, except that this must be much nicer than in the movies because it's a warm shower instead of a clam and cold one - reasonably warm, in fact, somewhere halfway between Caroline’s preferred scorching hot and his usual freezing temperature.

  
They’ll make this work.

  
He smiles into the kiss, almost vibrating with joy, and runs his fingers over her skin, soft and wet against his, and for the second time tonight Dwight seriously considers –

  
“Ah-ah,” Caroline pulls back and puts a finger on his lips which really does not help to stifle his urge to kiss her against that wall. “May I remind you of an engagement in your calendar at 7pm tonight? Both our calendars, actually. And I will tell you, if there’s anything Uncle Ray can’t abide it’s tardiness.”

  
Dwight groans. Two weeks of sleepless nights over this dinner, and now he promptly forgot about it.

  
“Though I’m sure there’ll be time for some fun later,” Caroline winks and steps out of the shower.

  
He watches her as she wraps herself into her bath towel in front of that ridiculously large mirror of hers which will be their ridiculously large mirror from now on in front of which he will continue to brush his teeth tomorrow, and in a week, and in December, right here in this flat in which she’s asked him to live with her, together, as a proper couple, and for the first time, Ray Penvenen doesn’t scare him anymore.

  
The room is still hazy with mist, but his future has never seemed clearer.

  
“Come on then,” Caroline laughs and throws him his towel. “Let’s be fashionably punctual.”


End file.
